Did an app failure cost Romney the presidency?

President Barack Obama is the first president to preside over the smartphone age in the U.S., and in both of his presidential campaigns the technology he employed helped him win the election. On the other hand, Mitt Romney's campaign clumsily handled technology as though it were a wet football and the failure of an app might have led to the easier than expected re-election of President Obama.

Romney campaign worker's checklist

The app was part of a system called Project ORCA that was designed to collect and monitor polls using smartphones to collect information in real-time. The goal of the app was to see which areas of the country were suffering from low voter turnout. The Romney campaign would then send out staff to get the vote out in those areas. But instead of adding thousands of votes, a number of problems with the app and how it was accessed might have led to Romney missing out on thousands of potential votes.

Using the app was designed to be faster and more precise than using phone calls to get voters to areas where they were needed the most. "We will have had much more scientific information just based on the political operation we have set up," said Romney Communications Director Gail Gitcho to PBS. Another campaign worker laid out the game plan for the use of Project Orca when he said, "By knowing the current results of a state, we can continue to adjust and micro target our get-out-the-vote efforts to ensure a Romney victory." It might have been the app that led Romney to be so confident of winning, that he prepared only a victory speech for election day. By the time the evening rolled aound, the app had crashed and could not be used. A source in Boston told a Washington paper that "somebody said Orca is lying on the beach with a harpoon in it."

Project ORCA was supposed to be the killer app that would win the presidency for Romney

Even before sunlight started to fade last Tuesday, Romney's campaign workers were having problems using Project ORCA. Some of the problems were due to the lack of technological prowess among Romney staffers and volunteers. One volunteer, reported that the materials used to train campaign workers was inaccurate. Romney campaign staff was told to look for a native mobile app when it was a web app with an https URL address. Because http did not redirect the user to the correct site, anyone typing www or http could not access the site.

Romney himself said that Project Orca would give him an "unprecedented advantage on election day." 34,000 operatives with the Project ORCA app installed on a smartphone were placed in key areas around the country. Based on data that these campaign workers were generating with the app instead of listening to traditional exit polls, the Romney campaign would know by lunch time which states they were ahead or behind in and could shift resources from states they were winning to the states they were trailing in. By the time the polls were closed, Project ORCA was supposed to know how 18 to 23 million people voted.

By 4pm on election day, Project ORCA was calling for an electoral vote total of between 290 and 300 for Romney which would have given him more than the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. Compare this to the incredible accuracy of Nate Silver's fivethirtyeight blog which gave Romney only an 8% chance of amassing the electoral votes needed for victory the day before the polls opened.

Project ORCA failed, costing Romney thousands of votes. Yet, not all of the problems were from the technology as CBS News' Jan Crawford suggests. "They expected it to be between 2004 and 2008 levels, with a plus-2 or plus-3 Democratic electorate, instead of plus-7 as it was in 2008," said Crawford. "Their assumptions were wrong on both sides: The president's base turned out and Romney's did not. More African-Americans voted in Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida than in 2008. And fewer Republicans did: Romney got just over 2 million fewer votes than John McCain."

"The general idea is to conduct the world's largest exit poll. Through Project ORCA, at any given moment we will know the current ballot in every State, DMA & County.... For example: if we happen to be down in a state at lunch time, we can pinpoint exactly what is causing it. So, if we know we're going to win X state by 3 points, let's move our resources to Y state, county. In sum, Project ORCA will give us an enormous advantage by being able to know the current result of a state."-Romney campaign describing Project ORCA

Hey, why should we open up old wounds... What if we try "Working together for the development of our Country". Division will surely make us fall, and the world is looking and laughing at us... There's an App for that!?!

Since when can you be a Democrat, Republican, or Independent and not be able to call out politicians of any party on what they've done wrong?

I know plenty of Democrats who were upset by President Obama's first term. In fact, if you look at the popular vote, Obama was down about 8 million votes this time around. I wouldn't say these votes went to the other side, as Romney was also down about 2 million votes from McCain's 2008 presidential run. I have talked with a good handful of Democrats who were upset over Obama's term in office and told me they were either going to go third party or not vote at all.

Same goes for Republicans. I know a good handful of Republicans that were upset over Romney being chosen as their nominee and decided to vote third party this time around.

The point is that just because you may identify yourself with a certain party or consider yourself an independent, that does not mean you are not allowed to call out the politicians on what they've done wrong.

Romney lost because he was an insincere liar. Saying one thing this morning and another by night fall. Say what you mean and mean what you say.

The Republican party needs and over haul it is being torn a apart by the tea party. Both parties need to get rid of public interest groups, and do whats right for America instead of whats right for people with large sums of cash who are pulling stings behind the scenes like the Koch brothers, or by Grover Norquist.

OMG!!!!!!!!!!!! Im so glad someone else said it lol. The Republican party have kept their stubborn ways since the 50s and its not working. Lets see what they're views are:

1. they dont relate to women and their issues (especially dealing with single mothers and abortion)

2. They dont care for the poverty-stricken areas (primarily those within the african-american community)

3. They are against homosexuality (Im not gay, but you have to relate to their rights no matter how wrong you think it is)

Need i say more?? You cant be that conservative to ignore what this country's issues are. This isnt 1955 where the only people that have a voice are white people!! those days are gone and republicans needs to start over

IMHO, one of the biggest failures of this program was inaccurate communication from the people in charge: ORCA wasn't an "app" in the "download an app to your phone" sense, it was a "web app" in the "navigate to a website, log on, and go from there". By insisting on using a misleading buzzword instead of being explicit about what was going on, people were confused.

Not to diminish the tech savvy of the volunteers but when was the last time you heard about an "app" that WASN'T something you downloaded directly to your phone?

No, Romney was winning until Sandy hit. Somehow he got more votes even though a democrat stronghold with millions of democrat voters was left without power and water. uh huh..

polls said that 40% of peeps that voted for Obozo said his "sandy efforts" (aka photo op) pushed them towards him. he didnt do jack squat other than walk around with Chris Christy.. that jackass cost his own party the election.

Romney never had a snowballs chance in ,,,,,the only polls showed him winning was foxnews and american crossroads,,,,,not was only the election a LANDSLIDE victory but winning All the battlegrounds states to include almost winning a red state of nc is really no point in arguing...this subject can go on and on but 2016 is far far away so suck it up and move on,,i thought this was phonearena not politico im waiting on the droid dna and you all are still crying about romney and his lost

What about cutting red tape at FEMA? You know, that agency Romney wanted to get rid of. And when asked about it, didn't have the courage to answer the repeated questions. But OK, we'll go with your theory that lack of power because of a hurricane is "obozo's" fault. Can you add two wars on a credit card (1 on false Intel), a $500 billion surplus to $10.2 trillion deficit, the worst economic collapse since 1929, terrorist attacks on US soil (in spite of a CIA memo called "al queda determined to attack in US")? Let's forget about the fact that more jobs have been added in the 6 months than the previous 12 years. I guess there is no improvement and tax cuts for the 1% was the answer. It worked so well in 2002. Or, maybe Romney lost because he demeaned the 47% ( which is mostly people who pay payroll taxes, social security recepients, military in combat such as myself, and college students). Or maybe he Obozo won because the app was bad, the dept. of labor cooked the books, a hurricane, the liberal media, and Karl Rove was right. But remember, Obozo, won the 10 highest educated states, Romney won 9/10 least educated states......what a coincidence.

HEY-- Willard12--Just like in Baseball, all the runners that were on base before the relief pitcher came on, them runs still goes in the starting pitchers column. That means, all the trillions spent to end the "WARS" that Bush started. Goes under the deficit of The War Starter... ie Still Trillions under the Bush Deficit run-up...

You know what makes this even more amazing comparing Bush and Obama...didnt Clinton have a major war happen on his watch? How was jobs and the economy while Clinton was in office? Gas was real low while Clinton was in office.

Makes you wonder now, and ppl should really step back and look at the bigger picture and stop blindly hating...

remixfa - there is fairly objective polling proof that Sandy did not 'interrupt' Mittens' 'momentum'. You may not want to hear this, but Mittens' was starting to slide in a majority of polls that were conducted in the swing states before Sandy hit. Since the POTUS is elected by electoral votes, swing states are all that matters (ask W. about that - 2000, eh).

Blaming Sandy or polling bias or whatever for Mittens' loss ignores the fundamental fact that the Rs need to broaden their appeal. The point when Mittens became viable was when he was able to turn to the center in the first debate and Barry didn't challenge him. He went into the debate with a campaign that was on the verge of being written off. By his crew of fellow 1%-er donors, no less.

Well, remixfa... Why didn't Rmoney go take a look in that disaster area... Your right maybe he was winning until Sandy hit... Problem was , he didn't play "Politics", the very reason he was in the race to play... It sure would of made him look "Presidential"... @ Remixfa #12

Watching Romney run for election is like watching Donald Trump running for election. All they do is run their mouth trying to make the other look bad, while staying inconsistent with their goals and plans. The first news I saw about him before the election started got me thinking what an a-hole this guy is and I can't believe how many support he gathered with the way he is. The future looks bad if this the kind of presidential candidate that's going to be running for elections. We should be picking between quality individuals, people like Romney is certainly not one of them.

One word - "DEMOGRAPHICS"... The app has nothing to do with why Mittens lost! Wake up people! He and his campaign thought that by getting most of the "white" votes and ignoring latinos, asians and for that matter women (declaring war against them), he would win the Presidency. We all know how that turned out! P.S. the people trolling on this article are the same people Romney and his campaign trying to get the votes from... What sore losers!!! WAAAAAAAAAAA

Whateverman we can't afford 4 more years. We're back in a recession after he spent hundreds of billions (maybe trillions to get us out which proves what the Republicans said as truth). Our taxes are going up! Make no mistake about it. He's not just taxing high income families, he's also raising taxes on the lower and middle income families as well. Not to mention someone such as myself can't afford Obama care. But seeing as we have mindless youths who don't really pay attention to politics the Democrats will win elections.

I'd really like to debate politics if you care to spar with me! It'll be fun :-)

Romney supporters will place the blame where they can, but the fact of the matter is, Obama did BETTER in this election than the previous, despite the fact that the public opinion of him was less than it was in the previous election. Fact of the matter is, Romney is obvious scum and the majority of people thankfully was able to see that and decide to give Obama 4 more years than risk handing the country over a true bureaucrat. The republican party shouldn't have backed such a spineline man, they got pretty close to victory with John Mccain, and that was with SARAH PALIN of all people as his running mate. Imagine what the GOP could have done if they selected their candidates more intelligently.

Obama is huge scum too friend. How you ask? Let's look at it this way, Obama administration went on about how Romney shut down companies and cut jobs right? Of course anyone with an economic background realizes sometimes you must close down failing locations for the benefit of the rest of the company/companies. However! When the Obama administration decided to take GM over they shut down plants and took out Pontiac, Oldsmobile, and Saturn costing jobs. That damn scumbag Obama ;)

GM decided to shut down Oldsmobile in 2006, during Bush. Pontiac and and Saturn were making redundant cars that were losing money and GM closed them. GM is now back to being the #1 automaker in the world. Part of the TARP that you complain about was a MIDDLE CLASS TAX CUT and the payroll tax being lowered from 6.2% to 4.2%. Obama is currently asking congress to extend the Bush tax cuts for those earning under $250,000 while letting them expire for those making above that as a part of the debt deal....this is today. So, "our taxes will go up" is a lie. I'm not sure who told you we are in a recession again after continues growth. Of the $6 trillion in debt run up under Obama, $4.8 trillion are attributed to leftover Bush spending that continued under Obama (Iraq, Afghanistan, Medicare prescription drug program). Obamacare, modeled after Romneycare using 7 former Romney advisors, I guess punishes business owners by making them give their employees medical care...oh the horror. Maybe we should have continued to be the only industrialized country in the world without healthcare while spending the most and while paying for hospitals in Iraq.

Yes! A Government controlled GM shut down Pontiac and Saturn killing jobs! Thanks for proving one of my points!

As for not raising taxes on lower income families is a pile of crap. The Obama administration wants to raise taxes on low income families anywhere from $500-$3500 a year. Mostly on income tax returns. The administration isn't even hiding that information so check it out sometime.

Our healthcare should be changed but not to what Obama nor Romney wanted. Forcing people to get health imsurace is a travesty. I can't afford it for anyone but my daughter. Our economy is falling fast my friend. My 401K has shrunk in half in the last 4 years. Meanwhile my other investments are about to hit dead zero! My pay has shrunk by $400 a month and YET the Obama administration spent TRILLIONS that you CAN'T blame Bush for. Do you realize he spent more than Twice of Bush in half the time?! And yet its because of a failing Health system that was in place during Bush's administration and the same two wars. The money doesn't add up friend.

Now low income me has insurance expenses I can't afford, my taxes will increase (state taxes too woo go Democrats.. not) and yet ill lose more pay at work because now people such as the CEO will be getting taxed higher.

Now is not the time to raise taxes on any class. Certainly not the ones employing us. A business owner that has $300,000 and 10 employees maybe letting people go to save his business and livelihood.

Don't be a sheep. Become more informed. I read and listen to a lot of Liberal/Conservative views and information. Romney wasn't our best choice but compared to Obama he was far superior in many ways.

4 years from now our debt will increase 4-6 trillion dollars more, our armed forces will be shrunken greatly (killing jobs) our unemployment rate will be at least 12%, and yet you same sheep will vote for the next liberal to promise them the world.

Heh afterall we're in a recession again after he spent 900 hundred billion and put it into the economy.

One last note then im done..

The unemployment rate doesn't include those who are part time, or right out of college. Our true unemployment rate isnt good. We will had 146,000 jobs then lose 160,000 in the same month. Now with veterans being released from the military as part of cutbacks there will be far greater unemployment. Cutbacks we wouldn't have to make if the Obama administration didn't waste so much.

I apologize for the typos. PA needs a mobile site because fixing it on a cell phone is horrid.

I know I used the "one last thing" speech already, but keep in mind Vice President Joe Biden admitted we will spend 1 Trillion dollars a year for the next 4 years. Sleep tight knowing Generations to come will suffer for it.

Ruckus you have it all ass back wards. 1st off Saturn was being sold off because it wasn't profitable to GM. There were no buyers at the price GM wanted it for so they unwound it and let it close.

Hertz wanted to buy Saturn but the asking price was too high so GM let it go with no other offers.

2nd this economy is all because of President Bush you idiot. The Republican run government collapsed our government through war and s**tty investment policies. See the documentary the inside job, or go investigate this. The republicans, and some democrats ran sacked our economy and left you and I on the hook.

When George bush took over we were 3 trillion dollars in debt. When he left office we were 9 trillion in debt , and he left behind a broke failed sinking economy.

His Medicare bill for the elderly helped sink the economy. That bill gave the elderly free health care with no way to pay for it. Companies like US health care got paid by the government for these programs which comes out of tax payer dollars. Go research this then come back before saying no. So in essence Bush's health care bill gave health care companies free reign on making money off of seniors, and is being paid for out of tax dollars. The problem was there was no tax increase to pay for it so it created a deficit.

"Now is not the time to raise taxes on any class. Certainly not the ones employing us"

You don't have a clue about how money works do you. Right now things are getting more expensive....this is called inflation Inflation is a tax that affects the poor more than the rich. Passing taxes to the wealthy will help offset the loss in revenues you "idiot"

I mean "idiot" sincerely too, because don't think for a minute that guys like Mitt Romney give s**t about your poor ass. He said it himself 47% of America just wants free hand outs. You are in the 47% that he was talking about.

Employers don't use tax cuts to hire people Mr. foolish. They use a metric called supply and demand. Even if their taxes went up 50% and demand was high they would hire people.
Any economist will tell you that I am correct low demand no hiring, high demand hiring until demand falls off ok.
The problem is jobs, and manufacturing sent over seas during the Bush administration has killed American jobs....why aren't you complaining about this. Why aren't you complaining that Bush's medicare bill cost 700 billion dollars to the tax payer, and rising. Research this before saying its a lie too.

I cant go into every stupid thing you talk about, but this statement:

" Heh afterall we're in a recession again after he spent 900 hundred billion and put it into the economy."

is also a ridiculous statement, isn't it better to spend money to make our economy rise?

You spent too much time educating yourself with fact less republican sound bites. Educate your self with the truth and then let's have a conversation.

Dude, I've been in the Army for 16 years, who are these veterans being released that you speak of? When there is a draw down in the military, such as under George H.W. Bush, that is done by reducing recruits. IE, new recruits need to have a diploma rather than a GED. GM and Chrysler have built new plants in Ohio and Michigan and hired after closing Saturn and Pontiac, still not tracking what you're referring to as far as unemployment, but GM and Chrysler were in trouble long before Obama took office and bailed them out. As a someone whose spent 3 years of my life in Afghanistan and Iraq, I know you are just spewing nonsense when you say "veterans being released because of cutbacks." You have no clue about what you're talking about. Or maybe it is me, I've only been a company commander, operations officer, executive officer and manage my units budget. Maybe you can come on base one day and let me know what's going on around here.

First off happy belated Veterans day. I appreciate what you do/have done for our country. As for cutbacks my friend I have 3 friends and my brother all in the Army and they have all been asked to be released early from the Army. Perhaps its their line of work but they are more or less getting kicked out on good terms (2 of them don't want out). These friends/family of mine don't talk to one another so I find it hard to believe that they aren't making cutbacks.

As for GM im not arguing about them shutting down either Saturn or Pontiac. I was making a point to someone else about Bain Capital doing the same to save the company.

As for the bailout on GM I do disagree with us bailing them out! GMs fall would have helped the other auto makers. If Kmart/Sears went under today, the competitors such as Target and Walmart would get an influx in customers. But if course the Government would never do for Sears what it did for GM.

I'm sick and tired of replicans defending tax cuts for the "job creators". Instead of using money to pay for taxes like they should they use it for lobbyists and political campaigns.

The money used by both parties campaigning is insane. The bottom line is everyone should have to pay for equal share. Only in a backwards world do you pay lower percentages in taxes the more money you make.

Qwikstrike don't be a fool. Raising taxes WILL kill jobs. Maybe not everybodies jobs but ALREADY since Obama has been re elected we've seen companies lay off workers to prepare for the tax hike and Obamacare.

Qwikstrike unfortunately I've been in the business world for a while. When we had the minimum wage increase back in '06 or '07 that the Democrats pushed for, my company slashed jobs and pay of those making more than minimum wage (like me) lost significant pay. My company also struggled to make it through the times.

You can be blind qwikstrike but when we have a President who has created more Debt than any other President by leaps and bounds in less than 4 years, then we will all have to pay and make sacrifices.

Ruckus you are the fool, I have been in the business world over 25 years, and trust me demand or lack of demand is what creates or kills jobs. Republicans like Mitt Romney sending jobs, and manufacturing over seas is what is killing America.

Guys like you never look at the catalyst of why we are where we are. You blame the fire fighter for not putting out the fire. Bush/Cheney set the fire in 2000 and tripled our national debt broke our economy shipped jobs over seas and left us in a deficit that we have not climbed out of because of manufacturing and job relocation's in China, India, South America, Vietnam, Mexico, and the Philippines.

You can not ship Amerrican jobs over seas and lay off workers, and then expect those people to drive the economy. It is insane, and Bush caused this to happen .You need an education in finances and how our economy is run Taxes from Working class people is what funds our economy!

Working class people buy cars homes television sets, computers, food, and clothing. This buying is called demand. When they are laid off 750.000 a month like when Bush left office demand fall off until those workers are rehired.

However the problem was those jobs never came back because they were all cleverly out sourced as they were being laid off. Wake up pull you head out of your ass and smell the coffee.

American products were once viewed as high quality product. All people ever talked about is Made in America, and the talks always linked Made in America to high quality. I for one, is pretty reluctant when buying Made in China products. You never know what's in their products or how they processed it. You could be sourcing their product when product quality test showing everything passed, then couple months later getting a lawsuit saying there's illegal substances in the products. I'm Chinese/Taiwanese myself, yet I go to stores and double check if a product isn't made in China just so I could prevent my family from getting sick.

When they closed the factories here to open up factories outside the country, those are labor jobs lost in the states. The workers hired outside of the country aren't American citizens. The products are being sold here and everywhere else to pay for those workers and the greedy business owners, yet those business owners are receiving tax cuts. The American dollars are pouring out to buy products that's paying those workers in China, not Americans. We need to bring back those labor jobs so those laborers who lost their jobs to people outside our country could get their job back and get our economy running again. Made in USA product were once viewed as high quality products, we shouldn't settle for anything less than that. "Made in USA", itself IS a brand.

"Instead of using money to pay for taxes like they should they use it for lobbyists and political campaigns."

Or, using the money they saved on taxes to go long on oil and gasoline futures.... Don't you find it just the slightest bit curious that when the recession hit, oil dropped to somewhere in the range of $20/barrel from north of $100/barrel? I wonder how much of the drop was due to speculators bailing on their positions? Fast forward to the present, and oil demand still hasn't caught up to where it was back in mid-2008, but prices sure are getting close to where they were in mid-2008.

And when the 1% have too much $ for their own good (courtesy of their American Taliban representatives), they put it into making energy cost more for the poor schmucks who are living paycheck to paycheck.

If energy purchasers were required to take delivery of the energy they purchased, the scourge that is energy speculation would be banished.

"Romney lost not cause of an app but due to his own hubris and incompetence."

Actually, if Mittens had done a better job of hiding his hubris, the incompetence could have been over-looked. Obama's campaign just did a really good job of defining him as a plutocrat and then he sealed the deal with his comments about the 47%.

Interesting how after the election, he confirms everyone's worst fears with his statements about Obama giving 'gifts' to his constituents.... He really does believe what he said about the 47%.

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